


The Other Muses

by Scytale



Category: Historical RPF
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, 3 Sentence Fiction, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-15
Packaged: 2021-02-28 01:33:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22745593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scytale/pseuds/Scytale
Summary: Three classical authors, if they were women.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	1. Euripides

**Author's Note:**

> Written for "Historical RPF, Any, Alternate Universe- Always A Different Gender" at the 3 sentence ficathon.

Misogynos, they call her, for writing women with the effrontery to defy men and win; it never even occurs to them that the playwright who takes the name Euripides might be a woman herself.

Still, perhaps they're right.

If being a woman is what men say it is, if being a woman means submission and silence and letting the course of her life be directed by wills of selfish men -- then she does, indeed, hate womanhood.


	2. Homer

Her father's poet has a beautiful voice; when he sings of poor, doomed Polyphemus praying to Poseidon, she shivers, her mind bringing her to a shore she has never seen.

But colorful as his recitation is, his story seems to miss an element of truth; he offers no satisfying explanation of how Penelope held off the suitors for ten years with no army of her own, or why the island goddesses give way so easily before a mortal man -- he reduces even great Athena to a minor role.

 _I could tell it better_ , she thinks, and later, when she sits and weaves with the other women, she does.


	3. Catullus

The first time she reads Sappho, Gaia almost forgets how to breathe; the fire that the poet speaks of runs beneath her skin, until she feels like it has consumed everything that she is.

It's more than just the beauty of Sappho's verses, though they have the sweetness that honey does in dreams; it's how clearly Sappho writes of her ardour for the girls she loves, her grief when they leave her to become wives and mothers -- and in those words, Gaia sees a reflection of herself, though she and Sappho are separated by centuries.

She pleads a headache and spends the rest of the day writing in her room, but not those worthless, frivolous poems she's written before to entertain friends; this time, she writes poems that speak to the truths she's held in her heart for so long, dedicated to a woman she names _Lesbia_.


End file.
